Stuck in my throat is emotion, overwhelmed with care. The weight of the world feels unmanageable; people in my life that I want to help, people out there that I don’t even know, when it’s hard enough to help myself.

I step outside and take a walk in the sun. My heart rips open, tearing seam by seam by the things I see. In a theater on stage, I recently heard a man say how it mystifies scientists that the hearts of hummingbirds don’t explode, considering they beat at rates exceeding 1,200 beats per minute, while the human heart beats at roughly 60–100 times per minute. Of course hummingbirds have evolved to withstand and embody such a quick heart rate. Have humans evolved to withstand the mercuriality of life?

It’s bewildering how the human heart doesn’t explode either.

Where’s it all supposed to go? The pain and the love and the words and desires? Pushing against bone and sinew, muscle and skin. I suppose our breath opens the door of this cage. Our eyes look into the cage of another. Amber, sapphire, silver, emerald cages of the heart and soul.

The fact that we’re here to feel it all for a number of years yet we still don’t feel it all, because we lose sight of the fact that it’s just a number of years between two great voids, and we don’t know what they are — a precipice and an abyss — standing on the edge is what we call life, as sharp as a blade and it can go any way, yet we stand on the edge with so much we long to do and say. It’s a wonder our hearts don’t explode.

It’s too damn beautiful in LA. So much to be grateful for, blessings and experiences and occurrences I simply can’t fathom.

But there’s pain, too. My heart breaks and repairs with each step of a walk, thinking, observing, the ceaselessness unnerving; I just want to love you. Why can’t I be me. I guess I can be, just know I’ll always love you unconditionally.

I wake up in the middle of the night with a scratch in my throat. With energy, too, the notion that I need to write, because it feels like something in my throat is stuck — words, love, sadness and expression, a physical manifestation of pain another lesson, a plea for guidance with nowhere to go.

Sometimes I just wanna hide, stop; things are never so bad as they seem at night, but I’m just sick of the sun, but damn it’s been fun, my skin is dry and my limbs are numb by invigorating ocean water, unreal on a Saturday, everybody outside walking and running; I’m running as fast as I can.

I’m overwhelmed. Life is a lot. Trying to grow my body and my heart, I guess what’s been missing is my journal and my art, ’cause penning these words makes me feel like me again, wading through perpetual honey-thick thoughts in my head. The thoughts release. Pen touches paper and order is restored.

I don’t want to give in but I think I need space, time for me, time to breathe, wishing I could stop time and just help everybody; this pressure, this scratch, this itch this pain, I wish I could make it all go away.

But I can’t.

The suffering down here can be brutal man. So we have music and friends to help us understand, but sometimes it’s hard to even see the point. None of us know what it actually may be, we think that we’re here to ultimately be happy.

Is that it? Happiness is so hard to attain — the sun is up sky is blue trees shimmering the smell of jasmine fills the air; I still feel insane, so much to lose so much to gain all this effort does is fuckin’ drain the light in our hearts.

Your eyes are like a windowpane; I see myself growing older time on earth it starts to wane and I just wanna drop the act, so sick of the game, a life where we’re all just the same. Thinking happiness comes from money and fame, fuck that man it’s a runaway train. I’m done fighting.

I feel the weight acutely; I can’t sleep now. A dream, my dream, I don’t want to give up. But the closer I get the more it fades away, I’m scared, it’s true. Am I worthy of this dream; what does it even mean?

Why is there something that I have to achieve to be worthy of rest, worthy of love, I got this scratch in my throat that I just want to go away, when instead of asking what it is it’s trying to say — energy stuck in the place where I speak, I wanna give in, I wanna be weak, I want to be alone but I can’t do it alone, take time away from the world to know your soul.

I can hide? I can be by myself and in this journal confide? Does that mean I’m giving up or is it all that I can do? Is it okay if today I say fuck the sunshine? I’m tired of the heat in the middle of winter. I’m tired of fighting, way beyond being bitter. I’m tired of lessons. Always something to learn. Everybody’s on their own journey, right. Just know that any way that you decide to go I’m your brother and I’ll always love you so.

It’s okay to be different. Sunflowers wanting rain. Open your heart and let the wind roar through your pain.

It’s okay to lie low. No rules we must abide. It’s okay to wanna hide in the shadows of the sunshine.